This is how Bill Shakespeare – the playwright, not the Notre Dame All-American football player – would put it:
“Be not afraid of greatness, Nate Stupar.”
“Some are born great.”
(Stupar’s dad, Steve, was a Nittany Lion lineman in the late 1970s. Brother Jon played in the NFL. Uncles Ron, Doug and Jeff all played football at Penn State. And Jeff quarterbacked the NFL Giants to a Super Bowl win.)
“Some achieve greatness.”
(As a senior team captain playing five positions at State High, Stupar was named first-team all-state by The Associated Press and was Pennsylvania’s Defensive Player of the Year.)
“And some have greatness thrust upon them.”
(Ah, today’s lesson.)
A TRAGEDY OF SORTS
Stupar was thrust into the spotlight on Saturday when Penn State’s top linebacker, Michael Mauti, left the game – and most probably the season – with a serious anterior cruciate ligament injury to his left knee.
Mauti’s injury came on a play where he didn’t even touch an EMU player. “When there’s no contact,” said fellow linebacker Glenn Carson, “it’s a really scary thing.”
Stupar saw it happen: “Mike was behind a player and the running back cut back. He planted and something happened and he fell over. I thought it was his ankle or something.”
It is a devastating blow to the Nittany Lion defense.
Mauti, the team’s leading tackler heading into the Eastern Michigan, was named to numerous preseason All-Everything teams after starting seven games in 2010. That was a comeback season for Mauti, who missed all of 2009 after tearing the ACL in his right knee in preseason drills.
Now, Penn State must play without Mauti, a brashly confident redhead whose emotion is without parallel on the Penn State roster. “I know what he’s going through – I tore an ACL — and the work he has ahead of him,” said Nittany Lion co-captain Devon Still, a defensive tackle. “But he’s up to the task.”
On Saturday, so was Stupar.
Stupar stepped right in and led the Nittany Lion defense with seven tackles. He spent a good amount of time in the EMU backfield, recording three tackles for a combined nine yards of losses – including a sack for six yards.
“We kept the same scheme and stayed with it,” said Carson, who have five stops and a fumble recovery. “Nothing changed with Nate in there.”
Still agreed: “Stupar came in there and did a heckuva job. He kept it going.”
LYNN INJURED IN THIRD QUARTER
Mauti’s injury was one of two devastating blows to the Nittany Lion defense. The other came late in the third quarter, when senior cornerback D’Anton Lynn was involved in a four-player tie-up, and stayed on the ground after the hit.
With many of Lynn’s Penn State teammates huddled around him and several players on both teams on their knees, the Beaver Stadium crowd was silent. Team doctors took off the facemask of his helmet as they examined Lynn’s neck and upper back. Lynn was strapped to a backboard, then taken off the field via a cart. He was transported by ambulance to Mount Nittany Medical Center, a short distance away.
“Lynn can move all of his extremities,” said Joe Paterno, indicating that the players’ parents and the Penn State team physician, Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli, were at the hospital with Lynn.
The Associated Press reported that Lynn was released from the hospital late Saturday afternoon.
STUPAR’S PLAY IS THE THING
After jumping into the action after Mauti left the game, Stupar didn’t have time to contemplate Mauti’s status or even his own. That’s until Stupar ran back through the south end tunnel – the one he ran out of as a second-stringer and back into as a starter.
“When we went into the locker room and Mike wasn’t there and his locker was cleaned out, it sets in that it actually happened,” Stupar said. “I saw that and it was, ‘This is for real.’ ”
It was a reality Stupar wasn’t sure was going to happen.
The 6-foot-1, 234-pound senior lost his job to Mauti during summer drills, when Mauti switched from middle linebacker after Carson emerged as a force at the spot. As a result, Mauti moved to strong-side ’backer. And Stupar moved to the bench.
In the first three games of 2011, Stupar had all of six tackles – which put him No. 14 on the Lions’ tackle chart. In 2010, he was the team’s No. 3 tackler, and he averaged almost six tackles a game. In two of the final three games of last season, he had 10 tackles.
Sitting was a pain the butt for Stupar, who started seven games in 2010 and two in 2009. He talked about it with his dad, who was teammates with Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley in the late 1970s.
“You have to be ready all the time,” Stupar says. “He always tells me, ‘Stand right by Scrap, watch everything that is going on, on defense and offense. Be aware of what is going on and be ready for anything. Anything can happen.’ ”
Stupar won’t kid you, even now that he has another chance to play full-time. Listening to his dad – and no doubt his mother, Char, a Penn State grad herself – wasn’t easy. But he did.
FIVE YEARS FOR THIS…
“As a fifth-year senior, it was obviously devastating,” said Stupar. “I tried to put it into perspective and think about what can I do to get better, then just wait for the opportunity to make an impression. As bad as it was with Mike and (Lynn) getting hurt, it’s…”
Stupar stopped. He’s too nice of a guy to finish the sentence.
It’s…his chance.
“Mixed emotions? Yes,” admits Stupar. He’s a smart guy, three-time Academic All-Big Ten, articulate, thoughtful, talks in a fairly gentle tone. Majors in sociology.
Though it was just minutes after the game when he was trotted out to a waiting media, Stupar had already given it some real thought.
“Emotionally, it’s mixed up,” he said. “You feel for your friend who got hurt. Then all of a sudden you’re going in and playing for him… The reality will set in soon and on Monday the reality will be there. You can’t let emotions rule your world.”
NATE THE GREAT
So, pragmatically, Stupar knows that this a great opportunity. For him.
Not quite on the order of Lou Gehrig subbing for an under-the-weather Wally Pipp on June 2, 1925, but a chance to still achieve the greatness that Stupar showed glimpses of in 2010.
And about that greatness, I asked Stupar, “Which one is it for you – the one you were born to or the one thrust upon you?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“I hope both.’
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